IITs, IIMs campus on foreign shores indicated

Updated on: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has indicated that it may allow the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to set up campuses in foreign countries once they improve their faculty positions.

The ministry had said it may not be immediately feasible for the IITs and IIMs to open campuses abroad as they are facing faculty shortages and have to undertake 54 per cent expansion in their intake to implement the other backward class (OBC) quota.

“Setting up of campuses abroad may further strain the IITs’ limited manpower and other resources. Also, various memoranda of association of the IIMs will need to be amended because they do not empower them to open campuses abroad,” Minister of State for education D Purandeswari recently told Rajya Sabha members.

The government, one may recall, had turned down a proposal of IIM Bangalore to open a campus in Singapore. The HRD Ministry did not agree to the proposal on grounds that the Memorandum of Association (MOA) of IIM, Bangalore, does not empower the institute to open campuses abroad.

IIMs, however, remain optimistic. “We would like to go abroad with the intention of spreading our name if the government permits us. IIMs are the leaders of education in the country and should be allowed to set campuses in developing countries. I think it was a missed opportunity for the IIMs as there is a huge potential out there,” says IIM-Ahmedabad Director Samir Barua.

IITs, IIMs campus on foreign shores indicated

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